Focus on Standards

Contribute your input to the GMX/V standard. A new version of GMX-V that incorporates significant feedback has been posted at http://www.lisa.org/standards/gmx/. A demo file will be created to allow you to actually try out GMX-V to compare it to other tools. OSCAR is asking all tools developers to run the test file against their own tools, so that it can compare the results of commercial tools with GMX-V. Please submit your results/questions to gmxComments@lisa.org.

LISA OSCAR and OASIS work very closely together in terms of standards. Both bodies accept and acknowledge the value of each other’s respected standards.

Whereas OASIS concentrates mainly on general XML standards, LISA OSCAR’s focus is on the standards that directly affect the language industry. On occasion, there is overlap, e.g., OASIS Translation Web Services (TWS) and XML Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF). In part, this is a reflection of the relative membership status of both bodies. XML-INTL participates actively in both LISA OSCAR and, where relevant, the appropriate OASIS Technical Committees (TCs), such as Translation Web Services and XLIFF, as well as the W3C Internationalization Tag Set TC.

The principle LISA OSCAR standards such as TMX (Translation Memory eXchange), SRX (Segmentation Rules eXchange), TBX (Term Base eXchange), GMX/V (Global Information Management eXchange - Volume) and xml:tm (XML-based Text Memory) are principally focused on localization, although GMX/V can be applied to all document metrics requirements. Where appropriate, LISA OSCAR and OASIS cite each other’s standards. In fact both GMX/V and xml:tm both make extensive recourse to the OASIS XLIFF standard. xml:tm also cites W3C ITS Document Rules specification. This is in keeping with the best traditions of open standards standard bodies – mutual respect and recognition and reuse of existing standards from each body where appropriate.

As someone who participates in LISA OSCAR’s TMX, SRX, GMX/V, TBX and xml:tm, as well as in OASIS’ XLIFF and Translation Web Services and W3C ITS, one of the most significant things that I have noticed is the profound mutual respect that is granted by all participants. In the end all of these standards have the following aims:

• Increased interoperability
• Reduced costs
• Increased choice
• Better performance

The LISA OSCAR standards play a key role in working with OASIS standards to provide flexible solutions to localization challenges such as translation memory, word and character counts and text reuse. The LISA OSCAR GMX/V standard is a perfect companion to OASIS XLIFF and Translation Web Services with respect to word and character count definitions, in addition to other metrics. The LISA OSCAR xml:tm standard is a perfect companion to the OASIS DITA standard, since it brings the revolutionary DITA concept of reuse (both source and target language) at the topic level, down to the sentence level. In fact, they are made for each other! The LISA OSCAR TMX, TBX and SRX standards allow for the OASIS Translation Web Services to offer flexible and well-defined ways of exchanging legacy information.

There are many topics still to be addressed by the LISA OSCAR TC. GMX/V is the first of a trilogy of standards that will cover the aspects of qualifying the exact effort required for a given localization task; the others being quality (GMX/Q) and complexity (GMX/C). The LISA OSCAR TC continues as well to improve on existing standards. Since TMX was one of the first XML-based standards to be released anywhere, it is now due for a complete overhaul to enhance interoperability with OASIS XLIFF and to make it more XML-centric. The request for this came directly from the OASIS XLIFF TC itself. At the same time, much valuable work is being done to further improve the SRX standard. We should be seeing version 2.0 of both in 2007. Work is currently underway on TBX Light, a simplified form of the TBX standard that is more attuned with day-to-day commercial requirements. (Read Standards: TBX-Lite News.)

For more insights, read

GILT Metrics – Slaying the Word Count Dragon

Coping With Babel: How to Localize XML (parts 1 and 2).

Focus on Standards: How to Leverage the Maximum Potential of XML for Localization

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Andrzej Zydroń is a member of the LISA OSCAR Technical Committee. He is the technical architect and editor of the Global Information Management eXchange (GMX) proposed specification suite, as well as editor of the proposed TBX Link specification. Zydroń sits on the OASIS Technical Committees for Translation Web Services, XLIFF and XLIFF segmentation. He is also a W3C invited expert sitting on the W3C ITS TC. As CTO for XML-INTL Ltd., he is currently developing the next generation of XML-based text memory systems to reduce authoring and translation costs for documentation. Zydroń is fluent in English, Polish and French.